


Karkat: Admit you have a problem

by iwantcandy2



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Emotional Infidelity, Gamzee Makara and Karkat Vantas Moirallegiance, Gen, Life isn't a romcom, M/M, Pale Infidelity, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Shoosh-Papping, Troll Romance, free shooshpaps for all, pale slut, you can't just go around rubbing your pale on people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 21:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/944732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwantcandy2/pseuds/iwantcandy2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Underneath the myriad layers of explosive profanity and corrosive self-loathing, Karkat is a pretty nice guy. Except there is such a thing as being too nice, especially when you're already in a committed relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Karkat: Admit you have a problem

**Author's Note:**

> So I have a headcanon that since Karkat is pretty much Troll Jegus, deep down he is much more compassionate than most trolls. Unfortunately, he comes from a society where compassion is a weakness, and concern is something that is only openly expressed in a quadrant. Which of course would lead to all sorts of problems.

You never meant to be such a nookslurping bulgemuffin. It must be part of your ungogly genetic makeup or something. Fact of the matter is, you are like Troll Midas, except instead of turning to gold, everything you touch turns to shit. Metaphorically, not literally. Gog, now you have that mental image burned into your brain. 

Anyways, back to the matter at hand. You never meant for it to happen. It’s not like you were actively trying to be paradox space’s vilest asshole. It had been a day like any other on the meteor. You know, stalking around the dimly lit hallways, looking for some blunt surface to slam your head against repeatedly in a vain attempt to alleviate the boredom. On some sort of self-flagellating impulse, you decide to pass by Cantown. You know, so you can catch a steamy glimpse of your would-be quadrantmate sampling tongue texture with the human. Because that is always the highlight of your day.

But no, as you approach the Land of Elevated Cylinders and Sloppy Interspecies Makeouts, there is no sound of nasally cackles or little carapacian feet scurrying to and fro. Nope, there is only the tiny clink of coolkid rearranging a few cans in a manner that simultaneously reeks of disinterest and self-loathing. You would recognize that body language anywhere, because it is what greets you every time you look in a fucking mirror. He is sitting cross-legged on the floor, one hand shuffling around the cans, another propping up his head. And he is most decidedly (and deliciously) devoid of companionship. Not even the Mayor is witness to his little solo soiree of moodiness.

You aren’t precisely sure what compels you to rain on his one-man parade. Most likely you wanted to rub it in his face. Oh wait, nope, it’s even worse than that. It’s because you’re a terrible fucking person who lives to bring every branch of reality the maximum amount of suffering and woe.

“The hell is your problem, Strider?” you ask, nudging a can tower with your toe. The tower wobbles, and in retribution sends a cylinder of something mysteriously labeled “asparagus” directly onto your toes. You swear and hop around, all pretense of being casual culled. Oh well. It’s not like you could hope to compete with the crown-prince of pretentious affected apathy. 

He watches your impromptu jig, his eyes hidden behind his shades. You bet he’s fucking smirking. Even though the shades only cover the eyes, and his mouth remains a flatline, you just know his eyes are cocky as fuck. Gog, he is unbearable. How does Terezi do it (with such abandon and overt displays of physical affection to boot)?

“Gotta watch out for those canned vegetables, bro. They’re pretty feral this time of year. Mating season and all.”

You’ve been at the receiving end of more than a few Strider-sized extended metaphors, and that one was, to quote William Shakespeare, “hella weak all up ins, dawg.” It barely qualified as a paragraph, as opposed to the usual sermon-sized helping he dishes out. And there was not a single reference to some of the more distasteful parts of human anatomy.

“Okay, something is seriously wrong with you,” you spit out, burying the sting in your toes under heaping piles of not-minding-your-own-fucking-business. “Either you are on some sort of twelve-step program to be less of a bulge-pickle, or something is bugging you.”

He just cocks an eyebrow, lifting one pale, furry line above the rim of his glasses. Further evidence that something is wrong: he has no comeback. 

“Did Terezi dump you?”

If you were being entirely honest with yourself, you would have to admit that glee wasn’t the only emotion you felt at the prospect. You also felt a twinge of pity, but FUCK if you were going to admit it.

“Look, just because a dude wants to take a moment to chill with his best vegetable pals doesn’t mean he’s having girl problems. Sometimes a bro just needs a bro’s day out with his favorite fruits in the aluminum.”

“Uh-huh,” you say, kicking a few cans out of the way so you can sit down in his general vicinity. “Well, at least you’ve chosen to hang around organisms roughly on your own level of brain activity.”

“Fuck off,” he replies.

“Seriously, is that the best you have?” you ask, leaning closer to look at his face. He doesn’t look sick, but then again, you wouldn’t know how to tell if a human was sick. “Have you caught some sort of weird space virus? Do I need to quarantine you?”

“Look, I just kinda want some time to myself to think,” he bites out, pushing his aviators further up his face. 

“Why? What the hell has gotten into you?” you ask.

“Oh, yes, thanks Karkles, that is exactly what I meant by time to myself. I would love for you to stay here and continue to violently force your weird alien bromance down my throat. By all means, continue.”

That should have been all the warning you needed. If even the fucking humans were calling you out on it, then you should have known you were going too far. But noooo, great and magnificent leader Karkat refused to leave no stone unfucked. Unturned. Fuck, another visual image in your head you don’t need. 

You scoop up the cans closest to you, shuffling them into a heap. A tiny, pathetic heap, but whatever, you’ve had worse.

“Sit,” you command, pointing to the pile. Again, Strider lifts a solitary eyebrow. “Sit.”

“Is this some sort of weird troll ritual? Are you gonna sacrifice me to one of your troll gods? Because I think I should be honest up front, I am only half a virgin.”

“Sit on the fucking pile, Strider,” you growl, doing your best to look imposing. You are a head smaller than him, but you’re smaller than everybody. You’ve learned how to be obnoxiously persistent. 

With a sigh, like he is doing you the world’s biggest favor by playing along, he slumps onto the cans.

“All right, commence with whatever weird chanting and shit you need to do. I’ll just lie back and think of England.”

“Fuck you, and fuck whatever the fuck England is. I’m not the one doing the talking. You are.”

“You want me to talk?” he asks, sounding both scornful and amused. “Well, I suppose the sound of my voice is pretty damn alluring, just didn’t suspect it was trollnip. I better get my publicity team on that, see if we can bottle the stuff and sell it.”

“Okay, stop right there,” you tell him, holding a hand out as if you can stop the deluge of aggravating noise. “Not that kind of fucking talking. Talk about your feelings, you dense piece of shit.”

There is a moment of silence. Then Strider snorts, a sound that is so smooth he has definitely practiced it in private.

“Is this one of those fabled ‘feelings jams’ I hear so much about? Shit is legendary. Like, according to Terezi, it is like Troll Jegus laying his hands on your emotional head and willing away-”

“Stop fucking stalling!” you command. He is surprisingly resistant to the power of the pile. You’ve done a lot of these jams with your emotional-Holocaust of a party, and usually they started blabbing before their asscheeks touched the ground.

“Look, just because you put me in the middle of a bunch of cans doesn’t mean I want to tell you my life story.”

“I don’t fucking care about your life story. Tell me what is wrong with you, and we can both go home happy.”

After a moment of staring each other down (at least, you think he is staring you down. Damn shades), Dave sighs, all long and drawn out like he’s coming up for breath after a dive. And he proceeds to “spill his shit, like a sinking oil tanker of emotion across the Atlantic of the heart,” to quote Mister T. He talks all about how nervous he is to meet his alternate reality Bro, and how he is afraid to talk to Rose because she psychoanalyzes everything he says, and he feels guilty about liking Terezi when the future of the human race may depend on him shagging the Jade human. You just listen, occasionally butting in to remind him that he is an overdramatic asshat and his problems aren’t as bad as they seem. 

Finally, he is emotionally burned out, his head lolling back onto a stack of peaches and his body language reeking of exasperation. Being a seasoned feelings jam moderator, you can tell that he has wrung out the last bit of melodrama, and is ready for the finishing touch.

“Shoosh,” you say, papping his arm. 

“Uh, dude,” Dave begins, probably to start in on some inane comment involving the phrase ‘no homo.’ You cut him off with another shoosh. Dumb fucking humans and their backwards, lumped-together romance. He probably thinks you are coming on to him, and maybe you are, but definitely not in the way he thinks. In any case, it doesn’t stop you from shoosing the hell out of the arrogant fucker, and eventually he just gives up and relaxes.

“Feel better?” you finally ask. He nods. “Good. Now stop wallowing in self-pity and get on with whatever the hell you do when you aren’t marinating in angst.”

You leave, strutting back to your block. Under the most severe of torture you might begrudgingly allude to enjoying being on the giving end of a feelings jam. When it comes to being pale, no one can hope to beat you. You are simply the best there is.

The smugness evaporates right off your ugly face when you open the door to your respiteblock and see Gamzee lounging on your pile.

“Well motherfuck, if it isn’t the palebro himself,” he says, not even looking in your direction.

“Uh, hey, Gam, how’s it going?” you ask, trying to pump your voice full of natural, not guilty, infidelity-free pale affection. 

“Well, you know the usual noise. All this floating through motherfucking space, surrounded by Horrorterrors and endless void to rival the mercy of the Mirthful Messiahs themselves. It really gives a brother time to get his think on.”

His voice is calm and even. That is never a good sign. Subconsciously, you back towards the door a little. 

Uninterested in your reaction, Gamzee continues: “Truth be told, I’ve had a lot on my mind lately. You know how it is, with the voices and all. And I could really use a palebro’s motherfucking support, you know what I am saying?”

You have been on this rock for a sweep, and you have seen Gamzee all of maybe seven or eight times. And you know, deep inside your mutant bloodpusher, that this meeting can’t be a coincidence.

“Gamzee, I don’t know exactly what you saw-”

“What I saw? wHaT i SaW?”

Ah, there’s the Gamzee you know. That’s probably your cue to start running.

“WHAT I SAW WAS YOU GETTING YOUR PALE ON WITH THE STRIDER HUMAN. Pale as sugar, bro, pale as motherfucking SUGAR. AS IF MOIRALLIGENCE WAS A THING YOU COULD MOTHERFUCKING SET ASIDE AND PICK UP AGAIN LIKE A MOTHERFUCKING TOY!”

He’s growling, and there are cords of spittle dripping off his front fangs. Right now would be a good time to start shoosh-papping, if you didn’t think that would result in the removal of a few of your favorite limbs.

“You’re overreacting, Gam. Okay, I admit that I was a little out of line, but come on! That asshat had his head so far up his nook he couldn’t see straight. Someone had to help him out,” you reason. “Don’t take this the wrong way. I just- I spent so long having to mediate for everyone, it wasn’t even conscious. I just saw him and-”

“AND YOU

motherfucking couldn’t

HELP YOURSELF,” Gamzee roars. He was the subwoofer wail of a highblood, so deep you can feel it in the roots of your fangs. You’re shrinking back, covering your ears to try and block out the concussive waves of his yelling.

“It’s okay, bro. Ain’t no thing.

AIN’T LIKE IT MEANT ANYTHING

Obviously. I get it. You see a bro in need.

YOU FUCKING PALE ALL OVER THEM, YOU MISERABLE PALESLUT.”

He’s right. You are a fucking paleslut. There isn’t a single person you wouldn’t push into a pile if they looked disconsolate enough. Before, when your team was tearing itself apart at the seams, that had been a good thing. You were the pale glue that held everyone’s crippling insecurities together. It had never occurred to you that you were tramping across quadrant boundaries like they didn’t apply to you, because you’re the fucking leader. And here’s your moiral, quaking in rage, and what are you supposed to do, shoosh pap him with the same hand that shoosh-papped another not an hour ago? Way to fuck with the feelings of your best friend. 

“Gamzee, I’m sorry. You’re right,” you admit, voice feeling as dry as the Land of Pulse and Haze. “Look, I know I don’t deserve it, but give me another chance. We can make this worraugh!”

Before you can get the words out of your mouth, Gamzee is inches from your face, a single finger pressed against your lips.

“Naw, man, ‘sokay. It just wasn’t meant to be. After all, a relationship can only work if BOTH PEOPLE ARE COMMITTED TO IT.”

And like that, he is gone, probably scurrying through the vents to raid a Faygo stash. You’re left alone, your only quadrantmate giving you the much deserved finger.

You crumple against the wall, feeling like barkbeast droppings. Because, hey, you just broke the heart of the only person who gave a genuine fuck about you.

Gog, you could use a feelings jam right about now.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a major attention whore, and I eat your kudos and comments for sustenance. >:] Feed me!


End file.
